Peter Thornborough

I suffer for my art. Whether it’s by sunstroke from sitting in a field of wheat painting an Italian hill town, torn flesh from clambering through ditches and brambles to get that better view, or ruined espadrilles from cowpats as I trespass for the perfect angle from which to sketch or photograph.

My art is inspired by architecture. There’s architecture in the structure of a cliff, a stand of winter trees, the rushing of a river, the furrows of a ploughed field. Travel inspires me, as do Neolithic structures.

I studied in oil. I now work in acrylic, and sometimes pastel, on a variety of medium including board, panel and canvas.

I employ a variety of different styles to suit the current subject, often contrasting broad areas of surface texture with areas of intense detail. Consequently, I need to reach for the bigger brushes occasionally. Or paint a portrait.

My artistic influences include Andrew Wyeth, Paul Hogarth, Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious, Turner and the photographer Michael Kenna.

Biography

Born and educated in Sydney, Australia, Peter studied fine art painting at East Sydney College of Art. He exhibited in Sydney, before becoming an animator, and then an Art Director in the advertising industry.

He then left Australia to travel and settled in London in the mid-1970s.

There, Peter's output was entirely consumed by advertising as Creative Director and Illustrator. In 2001 he found the time to return to his lifelong passion, painting.

He exhibits in galleries in and around London and, since 2003, annually at the Chiswick Artists-At-Home Open Studios.

He has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, had a One Man Show and various joint exhibitions on the island of Mon in Denmark, and accepts commissions from anywhere in the world. These have been as varied as a series of 19th Century Indian Maharajahs to a medieval Italian hilltown, the ancestral home of an Italian-American from Chicago.

Exhibition History

Nov2017-Jan2018		Joint Exhibition, The Hogarth Club, Chiswick
Nov-Dec 2017		Miniature Edition, Liza's Gallery, Denmark
2017		Artists At Home 2017, Chiswick, London
2016		Joint Exhibition, The Hogarth Club
2016		Artists At Home 2016, Chiswick, London
2015		Landscape Perspectives, Liza's Gallery, Denmark
2015		Artists At Home 2015, Chiswick, London
2015		Places, The Hogarth Club
2014		The Land, The Wing Gallery, East Sussex, UK
2014		The Bloomsbury Group, Liza's Gallery, Denmark
2014		Joint exhibition, Liza's Gallery, Denmark
2014		The Hogarth Club, Chiswick
2003-2014		Open Studio, Artist At Home, Chiswick, London. http://www.artistsathome.net
2014		The Bedford Park Festival
2013		The Bedford Park Festival
2012		Joint exhibition, Liza's Gallery, Denmark
2012		Winter's Light, The Riverside Studios, Hammersmith
2009-2011		Bedford Park Summer Exhibition
2009-2010		One Man Show, Liza's Gallery, Stege, Mon, Denmark
2007		New Grafton Gallery, Barnes, London
2006		New Grafton Gallery, Barnes, London
2006		The Rona Gallery, Mayfair, London
2005		New Grafton Gallery, Barnes, London
2005		The Russell Gallery, Putney, London
2005		The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London
2005		Latymer Arts Centre, Hammersmith, London
2004		Thomas Corman Arts, London NW3
2004		Latymer Arts Centre, Hammersmith, London
2003		Thomas Corman Arts, London NW3
2003		Karen Taylor Contemporary Art Gallery, St Margarets
2003		The Franco-British Society, Knightsbridge, London
2002		Karen Taylor Contemporary Art Gallery, St Margarets
2002		Walton Gallery, Gloucester Road, London